2020 Alabama Democratic presidential primary

The 2020 Alabama Democratic presidential primary took place on March 3, 2020, as one of 15 contests scheduled on Super Tuesday in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election. The open primary allocated 52 pledged delegates towards the 2020 Democratic National Convention, distributed in proportion to the results of the primary, statewide and within each congressional district. The state was also given an additional 8 unpledged delegates (superdelegates), whose votes at the convention were not bound to the result of the primary.

Five candidates ran in this primary, including former vice president Joe Biden, senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, and representative Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii. Nine other candidates who withdrew prior to the contest were also on the ballot. Joe Biden won by an overwhelming landslide, winning every county and congressional district in the state. He received 63% of the vote and was awarded 44 delegates. Senator Sanders came in second place, with roughly 17% of the vote and 8 delegates. No other candidate received any delegates: Bloomberg missed the threshold with 12% and Warren only got 6%. All other candidates received under 1% of the vote.

Procedure
Alabama was part of 14 states and one territory holding primaries on March 3, 2020, also known as "Super Tuesday," having joined other southern states on the date after a bill signed on June 10, 2015 shifted the date.

Voting took place from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m CST. In the open primary, candidates had to meet a threshold of 15 percent at the congressional district or statewide level in order to be considered viable for delegates. The 52 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention were allocated proportionally on the basis of the results of the primary. Of these, between 3 and 8 were allocated to each of the state's 7 congressional districts and another 7 were allocated to party leaders and elected officials (PLEO delegates), in addition to 11 at-large delegates. The Super Tuesday primary as part of Stage I on the primary timetable received no bonus delegates, in order to disperse the primaries between more different date clusters and keep too many states from hoarding on the first shared date or on a March date in general.

Should presidential candidates have been allocated more delegates based on the results of the primary than delegate candidates presented, then supplemental delegates would be elected at caucuses on March 28, 2020. Regular national convention district delegates, whose names were electable on the primary ballot beneath the presidential candidates they were pledged for, were elected on the day of the primary and published on March 28, 2020. The state executive committee meeting was held on June 6, 2020, to vote on the 11 at-large and 7 pledged PLEO delegates for the Democratic National Convention; the meeting had been postponed from April 4, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The delegation also included 8 unpledged PLEO delegates: 6 members of the Democratic National Committee and 2 members of Congress (senator Doug Jones and representative Terri Sewell).

Candidates
The following people filed for the presidential primary and were on the ballot in Alabama:

Running


 * Joe Biden
 * Michael Bloomberg
 * Tulsi Gabbard
 * Bernie Sanders
 * Elizabeth Warren

Withdrawn


 * Michael Bennet
 * Cory Booker
 * Pete Buttigieg
 * Julian Castro
 * John Delaney
 * Amy Klobuchar
 * Tom Steyer
 * Marianne Williamson
 * Andrew Yang

There was an uncommitted option on the ballot, as well.

Fundraising
According to the Federal Election Commission, between April 1, 2019 and November 23, 2020, Joe Biden raised $2,412,420.93 from Alabama-based contributions. Bernie Sanders raised $306,101.54, Michael Bloomberg raised $212.82, Elizabeth Warren raised $129,887.99, and Tulsi Gabbard raised $19,775.81.

Results


Analysis
Joe Biden's victory in Alabama was near-guaranteed. Four years earlier, Hillary Clinton carried the state with 77.84% against Bernie Sanders and won every county and congressional district, a feat repeated by Biden. FiveThirtyEight, which made state-by-state predictions prior to the primaries, gave Biden a 92% chance at winning Alabama, a landslide over Sanders' 5% chance. Aggregate polling from FiveThirtyEight right before election day showed Biden up with 40.2%, Sanders at 18.4%, Bloomberg at 15.9%, Warren at 10.9%, Gabbard at 0.5%, and other/undecided 14.1%. 270toWin had Biden ahead as well with 44.5% of support, 23.5 percentage points ahead of Bernie Sanders at 21%.

The week before, Biden swept the South Carolina primary by a 28.88% margin over Sanders, reviving Biden's candidacy after crushing losses in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Additionally, the moderate wing of the primary, consisting of former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, representative Beto O'Rourke from Texas's 16th district, and Senator Kamala Harris from California coalesced behind and endorsed Biden while the progressive wing, consisting of Senators Sanders and Warren, remained fractured. Thus, right before Super Tuesday, Biden's support surged.

Biden's best performance, regionally, was in the Black Belt, a historically Democratic region due to high proportions of African Americans.

On the same day, Biden carried all of the other southern Super Tuesday states of Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, and his upset victories in Maine, Massachusetts, and Minnesota catapulted him to frontrunner status. He would go on to lose the state in the general election, but retained his resounding victories among Black voters in the Black Belt.